


The Devil's Weed

by athousandwinds



Category: Cain Saga/Godchild
Genre: M/M, pre-Merryweather - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-13
Updated: 2010-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:12:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Datura is a real poison - Wiki entry <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura">here</a>. I don't think I've made any glaring errors in this fic, but if I have, please tell me.</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Devil's Weed

**Author's Note:**

> Datura is a real poison - Wiki entry [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura). I don't think I've made any glaring errors in this fic, but if I have, please tell me.

The maid was scurrying down the hallway, carrying a leather-bound volume in both hands and holding it at arm's length as if it would bite her. With Master Cain's books, Riff acknowledged wryly, this might very well be true. Her eyes alighted on him and she slumped, overcome by enormous relief.

"Mr Riff!" she called out anxiously, hurrying up to him. "Do you know where Master Cain is?"

"He's in the garden," Riff informed her; seeing the naked terror on her face, he added, "I'll take it to him."

"Yes, sir," she murmured, thrusting the book into his hands and bobbing a nervous curtsey before fleeing. Riff frowned at her retreating back. He would have to speak to Master Cain about not terrorising the maids again.

-

He found Cain kneeling next to a flowerbed, his fingernails encrusted with dirt and the knees of otherwise perfectly good trousers past redemption. Cain half-turned at his approach.

"Mary, did you find – ?" he began slightly irritably, but checked his tone when he saw Riff. "Have you got it?"

"If this is it, sir." Riff held the thick tome up and Cain pounced on it eagerly. Riff knelt beside him, resigning himself to an altercation with the rather intimidating laundress.

"Yes, yes – " He flipped to the index and glanced down the list, then flicked through the pages until he found the relevant article. "_Yes_." The breath hissed out through his teeth: "_Yesssss_."

"What is it, sir?" Riff inquired, not entirely certain that he wanted to know.

"_Datura_." Cain looked up at him, his eyes bright with barely-controlled glee. "I _told_ him it could be grown here."

"Datura, sir?"

"In the greenhouse." Cain jumped up from the ground and Riff took the opportunity to brush some of the excess dirt from Cain's knees. Cain waved him away impatiently. "It's all right, don't _bother_ – " He led them into the greenhouse, where a large shrub was growing. It had long, white, tube-shaped flowers which Cain fingered lightly.

"This is it?" Riff asked. It appeared to be considerably less impressive than the other plants in the greenhouse. "Why – ?" He answered his own question. "How poisonous is it?"

"Oh, very," Cain said airily, as if he were referring to the weather.

"Of course." Riff tried not to sigh. It took an effort.

Cain reached out again and ran a fingertip down one of the flowers' petals. "They call them angels' trumpets. Or devil's weed. It depends on the writer." He seemed fascinated by the delicacy of the large flowers and stood watching them, utterly transfixed.

Riff touched Cain's shoulder, saying, "Master Cain – ", but Cain moved away, snapping a blossom from the shrub and twining the stem between his fingers.

"It's a very powerful hallucinogenic," he said, and his tone was contemplative. "You don't even stop dreaming when you're awake."

"Master Cain!" Riff's voice was sharp and it seemed to cut through Cain's pensive state. He blinked once, slowly. Then he said:

"I have such terrible nightmares."

His voice was flat and unemotional; Cain never demanded pity and he scorned shame.

"Then we will find something that cures them," Riff said firmly. "_Not_ datura. Sir."

"Of course not." Cain smiled, sweet and sharp. "Still, I'll extract the poison anyway. It could be useful. Not for me," he added quickly in response to Riff's frown.

"Master Cain, you'd best be getting back to the house," was all Riff would say. Cain grinned like the seventeen year old boy he wasn't, which hurt in some indefinable way and said:

"Race you?"


End file.
